Meta

Subscribe

UBB #5

Commentary & Discussion

No Usage Based Billing

There has been a substantial amount of commentary happening on the “UBB and Me” page, so I thought commentary & discussion should probably have their own page.

This doesn’t mean specific blog post comments aren’t welcome, but this page is intended for any commentary, questions or discussion of Usage Based Billing more generally. As always, please let me know if I get any of the facts wrong. I do research but this stuff doesn’t come easily to me.

The other reason I thought it necessary to start a page like this is that I have just received my very first response from any part of our Canadian government.

I still haven’t heard a word from The Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, who I attempted to communicate with on August 19th. I naturally contacted him first about Usage Based Billing because he is the Minister charged with overseeing the CRTC. I filled in the electronic form on his website, but I’ve since had no response. I even offered him the opportunity to contribute to this blog. I thought he might actually want to, since he’s made a point of posting letters to the editor on his website. Silly me.

Today, on September 23rd, 2009, I received this response from the letter I sent to Prime Minister Harper which I also published as Dear Mr Harper. Ordinarily I would have waited a civilized reasonable amount of time for a reply before going public, but the 90 day timeline that came with CRTC’s Usage Based Billing ruling doesn’t exactly allow us much time. So this was written and posted on September 11th, and sent via email to the pm@pm.gc.ca email address provided on the PMO webpage

My email from the PMO

Since this is just a “we have received your comments” form response, what I have to wonder is how this could possibly have taken twelve days?

Had I sent my letter via snail mail, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect it to take that long for them to get it and respond, even with a form letter. But this is electronic mail. It would have arrived in Ottawa the day it was sent, probably moments after it was sent. An automatic response like this should have gone out the same day.

Could it be possible that Mr. Harper’s office staff and the PMO’s computer support staff don’t actually understand how automated email works?

This does not inspire my confidence in the Harper government’s ability to create effective technology legislation.

I’m currently working on yet another blog post that has been growing to colossal proportions.
I know myself that I don’t always have time to read the really long stuff, so I’ve decided to break it down into three more reasonable sized chunks. Which ought to make it possible to get the first bit online for tomorrow.

8237 signatures @ October 8th!

*Part “B” of the alphabet series is online, with “C” in the works.

NEW STUFF

January 22nd, 2010 – Look Ma! An ANSWER!

I finally received my actual response from the PMO. I guess the staff can get a lot of the backlog caught up when parliament is unexpectedly prorogued. So: this would be the response to my much earlier blog post #15 Dear Mr. Harper

The reason I wrote to Mr. Harper specifically was in direct response to the words that came out of his very own mouth. Words that were published on a Canadian government website. The tone of my letter was essentially, an “If you really believe what you said” how can you justify UBB?

The response that took the PMO five months to craft:

January 22, 2010

Ms. Laurel L. Russwurm
Laurel.l@russwurm.org

Dear Ms. Russwurm:

On behalf of the Prime Minister, thank you for your e-mail message regarding the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s (CRTC) approval of usage based billing. Please accept our sincere apology for the delay in responding.

We have taken the liberty of forwarding a copy of your correspondence to the office of the Hon. Tony Clement, Minister of Industry. His office is in the best position to respond to the issues you have raised.

Sincerely,

Salpie Stepanian
Assistant to the Prime Minister

cc The Hon. Tony Clement, P.C., M.P., Minister of Industry

If this was going to be forwarded to Tony Clement’s office, why couldn’t that have been done five months ago?

But really, I wasn’t asking for facts or information… my letter was addressed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally.

I was asking Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a person as well as a Prime Minister how he could reconcile what he was saying to constituents about the importance of Canadian internet connectivity with what his government was actually doing/allowing to be done.

I guess this begs the question:
Is the PMO deferring to Tony Clement as the man best suited to explain how Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s words and his government’s actions can be reconciled?

Is this a prelude to Stephen Harper stepping down? Handing the reigns to Tony Clement (as Brian Mulroney did to poor Kim Campbell?)

Whatever it is it is just… too weird.

Hmmm… kind of seems as though it takes longer to get a “we are forwarding your letter” response than it does to pass legislation under Prime Minister Harper.

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

48 Responses to “UBB #5”

Realistsaid

Just to play devils advocate here, say you started a sightseeing company whose business plan depended on having a bunch of donkeys to ride through a canyon. To offer the service, you need to buy the donkeys, store them, feed them and maintain them. This costs time and money. You incur the majority of the direct costs up front, buying the donkeys – with the expectation of generating a return from these asse(t)s in the future. Over time, the donkeys age and start to break down. The trips become harder on the animals, especially the deluxe (longer) trip through the valley. Knowing that the harder-worked donkeys won’t last as long as the short-trip donkeys, you have always charged more for the longer trips to offset this future cost. Also, when demand surged and people began having to ride 2 people per donkey, you had to buy new donkeys to alleviate the strain on the herd. Prices needed to rise to cover this cost. If people were not prepared to pay the higher price for the rides, at least demand would decline such that it did not breakdown the herd (which would cost more time and money). At the end of the day, the donkeys (network) are an owned asset and to encourage continued maintainance and effective operation of the business (network speed via build-out and maintenance), the owner needs to get a return on this asset. The decline in quality and effectiveness of the product (if offered at all) will be tangible if the owner is told what their price should be. How many are satisfied with the aging and decrepid state of our public utilities? We can complain to no one when pipes are breaking or power costs are too high, because utilities’ returns are regulated, leaving them little to no incentive to modernize/expand. Get a clue, people.

A sightseeing company? That sounds more like TV than the Internet. TV is, of course, passive (as is sightseeing), whereas the Internet is participatory (like joining the Lions Club).

Donkeys that you need to “buy, store, feed and maintain” are not a good analogy for Internet infrastructure, because once in place, the operational costs of the Internet are almost non-existent,

To begin with, the Internet infrastructure was built on top of existing networks already in place (as telephone wire or television cable). These networks came to exist thanks to generous helpings of both government and citizen largess. It isn’t as though the incumbent carriers started from scratch.

Although it is true that the Internet would “incur the majority of the direct costs up front,” your analogy breaks down big time when you start talking about “the donkeys age and start to break down” (more wear and tear depending on use), because that isn’t how the Internet works.

The Internet doesn’t wear out, but the digital technology is improving and evolving so fast that it is necessary to continually upgrade to keep up, and so the idea that the operator could offset costs by charging a premium would be a good business practice. But although the Canadian incumbents charged enough to offset the cost of maintenance, upgrading and future expansion, the fact that service and capability remain virtually unchanged indicates they’ve done very little (if anything) in the way of upgrading.

Your analogy totally collapses when you talk about needing new donkeys to alleviate the strain because clearly Canadian Internet users have been paying increasingly higher rates, and the fact the operator chose to spend those proceeds elsewhere rather than reinvesting is not the consumer’s fault, but rather bad business practice on the part of the ISP.

In the real world, any business operator who chose to pay high dividends and invest in different business rather than expanding to fulfill the needs of their existing customers would go out of business. In the Canadian Internet market what we see instead is a case of legacy Internet carriers relying on a government bail-out by lobbying for regulations to enable artificially inflated profits by regulation, thus freeing them of having to meet the existing needs of customers (and replacing or adding new donkeys).

Presumably your graceless segue into slamming public utilities is an attempt to resurrect the fallacy that corporations are more beneficial to citizens than publicly run utilities. Corporations are hardly accountable to citizens– the only citizens corporations are accountable to are shareholders. Both Corporate and state owned utilities can be run well or badly, but certainly the bottom line for business is to make profit.

Although government regulators may be as cumbersome, inefficient and incompetent as the CRTC, ultimately they are far more accountable to citizens than any corporation. Or, they are supposed to be. When a regulator stops acting to fulfill the mandate of safeguarding consumers (as the CRTC has), it is clearly time for the government to step in and reform them.

Since the ubb came in place my internet bills have gone up $100/month (rogers)Dec and Jan
(and yes I am cancelling them).
However when I told them to cut off my internet when I reached my peak usage for the month, they said they couldn’t because the technology doesn’t exist.
Is that legal?
If I go to a gas station and ask for $10 worth of gas and the attendant puts in $20 worth of gas I am only legally bound to pay the asked for $10. Any court in Canada will agree with me on this issue. If I ask them to cut me off at my cap, by law they should have to cut me off, but they won’t and as far as I am concerned are breaking the law., Are they above the law?

Lannysaid

Also, if you subscribe to Rogers High Def cable, you can download 18Gig worth of movies in a day or nearly 60Gig of high def movies a day if you have three receivers.

So then…where does a fair cap of 60Gig per month come from when Rogers can potentially have one cable customer pouring 540Gig a month down the drain my leaving his high def TV on untended…assuming only 1 receiver.

I’m mathematically challenged, but I know enough to know that internet users are being grossly overcharged ALREADY. In itself, UBB is an additional level of pricing. The only justification for this is the CRTC’s demented idea of “economic traffic management.” That translates to: turn the Internet into a preserve for the rich.

Most internet users will not have the faintest idea of how to determine what they are using. The real tragedy is that it will damage our economy during this recession.

RobertXsaid

Net Neutrality means that the Internet is neutral. Nobody, neither governments or corporations may influence the flow.

If corporations are allowed to employ discriminatory throttling, like for example Bell Canada as the carrier singling out specific internet traffic to impede, such as media downloading, Bell has mades conditions more favorable for the media doenloading service Bell Sympatico was trying to launch. In this way Bell Canada as the internet carrier is giving unfair advantage to Bell Canada the ISP. This is bad for competition. AN excellent reason for net neutrality.,

If Governments impede or influence the flow of traffic, perhaps by making discriminatory laws like the DMCA which allow internet content to be manipulated based on allegation rather than law, it suppresses free speech and jeopardizes human rights. Laws exist not simply to impose the will of the government on the populace, but to protect the citizens from governmental abuse of power. By ignoring legal concepts that have been tried and tested over centuries — concepts like “innocent until proven guilty”– we are removing protection from the populace. This is incredibly dangerous for a free society.

Like any technology, the Internet can be used in good ways or bad. They say that downloading is bad, and imply that all downloading is copyright infringement as an excuse for making DMCA type law. In fact, all downloading is NOT copyright infringement. But DMCA law can be used to frighten people away from downloading, which could lead to the internet being locked down. We may well lose access to Project Gutenberg, or open source software if that happens.

Thanks for your continued support RobertX. Don’t let it get you down… I think the fact that it has NOT been greenlighted is a very positive thing. Remember, it could have been implemented five months ago. Of course, they might only be waiting for the protests to die down. So keep telling people!

No one would be happier than I if the CRTC were to emphatically deny Usage Based Billing. I would like nothing better than to have the leisure to wind this blog down.

I have various partially completed blog posts in various stages, for this and my other blogs, as well as spending more time than I have reading/commenting in some of the Facebook Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament discussions. I’d have time for everything if it wasn’t for sleep. Oh well.

At this point I need to cut down on all of this and focus on getting the first draft of my novel finished, so I’m going to try to stay offline as much as possible for the next week anyway. Just popping in for housekeeping at the end of the day.

I would appreciate it if you’d let me know when the decision comes down though so I can come out of my garret for it.

RobertXsaid

Konrad & The Commissioners(TM) action figures are now available. See these marionette sock-puppet figures perform the most mind-numbing stunts known to mankind!! Hear them mumble incoherently as they display a stunning lack of knowledge!! See them ignore scientific facts!! Listen as they fail to perform logical reasoning!! Stare open-mouthed as they go ape-shit and screw the Canadian people!!

Now you too can exert complete control over Konrad & The Commissioners(TM) for the incredibly low price of just four easy payments of $199.95 + $8.3MM shipping & handling. Send money to account 837259 at Union Bank of Switzerland, Geneva – use the password “Mulroney”.

Act Now! This time-limited offer is brought to you by Robellus – leaders in fear-mongering, obfuscation, and incoherency.

We have nothing to fear but competition itself(TM) is a registered trademark of Robellus Oligopoly Corp.
Konrad & The Commissioners(TM) is a registered trademark of Maynard G. Krebs Enterprises (Panama) Inc.
Konrad & The Commissioners(TM) bear no resemblance to reality in any way.

RobertXsaid

I am SO far behind…. and my poor novel is wasting away from neglect, I haven’t even had time to THINK about it this week. I haven’t even had time to read even a single chapter of Cory Doctorow’s MAKERS yet.

It’s not a bad idea, but not for the alphabet series. There is only one more for that series (thank goodness… that has seriously taxed my technical understanding and translation ability) and I haven’t had time to even start that one with the prorogue and GBS..

RobertXsaid

It depends on how this prorogation business comes out. If our government is still out on a prorogue vacation, or if we’re in the midst of an election, and the CRTC comes out with a made-in-Bell-Canada solution, there won’t be a “higher court” to go to, as there was in the WIND mobile situation.

I would hope that the Independent ISPs would then simply not comply with any such CRTC orders until there we again have some government oversight. After all, Bell Canada doesn’t even bother to do what the CRTC says when there is.

RobertXsaid

RobertXsaid

Yes. My writing laptop OS is Ubuntu. It’s an older IBM ThinkPad I bought used, and it came with Windows ’98 which did not work very well. Switching to Ubuntu solved all the problems (like not recognizing my thumb drive) and it is an excellent machine that works well.

I’m just backing up my desktop machine with the intent to partition it so that it can run Windows or a version of GNU Linux OS. I may need to try out a few different versions of GNU Linux to see what works best. My goal is to be able to continue to run Photoshop 6 and at least one of my video editing software packages so that I can assemble home movies. My understanding is that they may or may not be able to run on a GNU Linux platform due to DRM. I tried GIMP a few years back and found it incredibly awkward, but then I also found Photoshop elements to be equally awkward. And I haven’t had a chance to try out any open source video editing options yet.

Currently I run XP and I really have no interest in “upgrading” to VISTA. (Although they’ve made Windows Seven look more like XP, it’s really still VISTA with a better user interface.)

Laurel L. Russwurmsaid

I believe that is when it could first happen, but they aren’t set up to physically implement it yet. Because the Independent ISPs are challenging this it is probably not going to happen as soon as the CRTC said. If their protests/court actions fail, my understanding is that the Independent ISPs will have to retool in order to implement UBB. I haven’t had a chance to properly research this yet though.

RobertXsaid

What I want to ask is this: you said you graduated from Sheridan college. Which university did you go to prior or after you went to Sheridan college.

I just graduated from (Humber North – at Etobicoke)college (with no prior or following university experience) for a computer programmer programme. I still can’t find a job, but since the last attempt, I started studying. What I like to find out is which university is a good one and what programmes you recommend.

Laurel L. Russwurmsaid

I didn’t go to university, I went to Sheridan College for Media Arts many years ago. I graduated in the midst of a really bad recession (although not as bad as this) so it was pretty tough to get work then too.

I’m not the right person to advise you on computer education, although being in school while the economy recovers is a good idea. It not only adds to your skill set, if you’re in school you don’t have to beat your head against the wall trying to get work when there isn’t any. If you’re a computer guy you might want to consider the University of Waterloo. We went to hear Cory Doctorow speak there the other day. Although he’s still living in England he is now he is now the University of Waterloo’s “Scholar In Virtual Residence” for their Independent Studies Program”. If I was a young computer pro, Doctorow is the guy I’d want to go to for career advice.

Bear in mind: I am NOT a computer person; I admire Doctorow as a writer. My son loaned me Little Brother

(I’m planning on blogging about his talk in the wind as soon as I get the StopUBB alphabet series finished.)

Laurel L. Russwurmsaid

Since Usage Based Billing will be so very bad for Canadians, it clearly needs to be stopped.

The reason I believe the CRTC should be dissolved is that their approval of Usage Based Billing was clearly contrary to the CRTC mandate. Perhaps if they were to use their powers responsibly and regulate for the good of our great country, I would not feel this so strongly. I am well aware that we need a regulatory body, however one that operates for the public good is needed. Certainly the new CRTC or its successors should not be filled with former Bell Canada staff. Until now I think Canadians had some idea that these people actually understood the technology and so were in a position to regulate wisely. This clearly is not the case. It seems to be especially clear that former Bell Canada staff should at best make a weak minority on any future regulatory body. I think we’ve just learned how absolutely crucial it is to have consumers on any telecom regulatory body, since the point is supposed to be to regulate for our good.

As a citizen, the Canadian government is answerable to me. They have no business allowing policies that are so bad that citizens would consider emigrating because of them. I have no intention of leaving Canada, my roots run deep. Citizens should not have to lobby a democratic government in hopes that they will do the right thing.

RobertXsaid

I’ve been visiting the DSL Reports message board, and I’ve been met with inhumanity. Those people over there shoot down constructive ideas, telling us only what we can’t do. It’s frustrating to read messages over there. They act like two year olds and they always bicker with each other.

I was going to puke blood if I was there one second longer than I can stay. Today, I decided to delete the site from my favourites/bookmarks. Damn.

So, the question remains: what can I do to keep up with the UBB news?

And what else can I do to help out the war effort? I’ve done the following:

– Subscribe and mail in to help the Pirate Party of Canada become a political party
– Go to http://www.consumersforinternetcompetition.com/ and write a letter to my MP
– Sign a petition to dissolve the CRTC
– Harassing-I mean consulting some members of Tek Savvy and keeping tabs on their progress

I don’t know what to do. My faith in the war effort is waivering, and now, more than ever. What else can I do?

Laurel L. Russwurmsaid

To keep up with UBB stuff you can always pop by here. In addition to what I write, as I find other sites dealing with UBB or net neutrality I add them to my side bar links. If its a stand-alone article it goes in the right hand side bar; on the left I have a list of sites entirely devoted to the issues. (Vaxination Informatique’s is a subset of the website. Although I passionately hate pdfs the Vax content is so valuable it is worth fighting your way through pdfs to get it.) You may notice how much longer the link list is getting, but as the public becomes awakened to the issue more people are talking about it. Because UBB will effect everyone who uses the internet.

Don’t be too hard on dsl reports just because of a few bad apples. I know they can’t all be bad because the originator of http://dissolvethecrtc.ca/ is a member of dsl reports. dsl reports is a really big website that i find difficult to navigate through it because there is just so much of it. You might want to try checking out different areas because there certainly are a lot of them.

Don’t let it get you down. It’s much easier to shoot down an idea than it is to think of one. Unlike those folks, you’re actually trying to do something to help change a bad situation. Some people just enjoy negativity. If UBB happens think of how much fun they’ll have whining and complaining about it. Personally, I would be ecstatic if the CRTC reversed the decisions to allow UBB and throttling because I’d have the time to do the things I want to do.

It sounds like you’re doing a lot for the cause, which is great. That is far more useful than complaining and doing nothing. The most important thing is still getting the word out. What I’m trying to do here is explain the UBB issue for other people like me who aren’t very technical. So my audience isn’t the dsl reports crowd but more like their grandmothers. You know, the family and friends whose eyes glaze over when you mention ethernet cards or net neutrality.

Just talking about it is important because people need to know. The more people who know, the less chance there is of UBB implementation. Write letters to the editor or comment on stories or blogs that may be related. Contact your local newspaper or TV or radio station and ask them why they aren’t covering the UBB story.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday writing about the fact that the new wireless Kindle isn’t available in Canada, and it is looking more and more like a wireless connectivity issue, probably caused by Big 3 greed. So my “in the wind” post touches on this. If you’re interested you can find it at http://laurelrusswurm.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/kindle-not-available-in-canada-eh/ I also commented in the comments section of the 2 Globe and Mail stories. This is important because it is evidence of how much control the internet/telecom carriers are having over our lives.

Laurel L. Russwurmsaid

I’ve just been reading through some of the Copyright Consultation Submissions. Because of UBB I didn’t read much of what was available before doing mine, so I’m learning all kinds of things I didn’t know before. I just had to stop to pass this quote along because it so beautifully sums up why I am spending so much time on Stop Usage Based Billing: